NVIDIA SHIELD - A Tegra 4 Quad Cored Portable Gaming System

In a surprise announcement at CES 2013 NVIDIA announced their very own, Android powered, portable gaming system to compete with the likes of Nintendo's 3DS, Sony's PS Vita and even other mobile gaming platforms. Named project SHIELD it is the very first device to use NVIDIA's newly announced Tegra 4 chipset - the worlds most powerful mobile processor, utilizing 4 processor cores and a whopping 72 GPU cores! It boast a 5-10 hour battery life when gaming or nearly 24 hours watching HD video using the devices 1280x720 HD, retinal, multi-touch display. Using the Android OS means that from day one there will be thousands of games to play (many of them completely free!) using the touchscreen and a good amount of them already work with game pads so you'll always have something to play.

It also features a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO wireless) wireless card so that it can both send and receive multiple signals at the same time, giving you unrivaled connectivity for a game controller that no other device has. As well as the impressive touchscreen, amazing connectivity and super powered processor it also features the worlds first portable bass reflex audio system that rivals even dedicated Jukebox style devices.

Controls of the NVIDIA SHIELD

Android gaming is certainly a big market but the touch controls often feel lacking in certain games, particularly with shooters like SHADOWGUN or FPS games. If you ask any hardcore gamer about playing games on a mobile device they will tell you that it doesn't work well with the touchscreen - they want a controller. A lot of accessory manufacturers know this and have made add-ons for some devices to make them into controllers but with the SHIELD they have taken that one step farther. It has been designed as a full-sized, console-grade, controller from the get-go. If you weren't paying attention you might actually mistake the device for an Xbox 360 controller with a screen attached.

It boast 2 analogue sticks, a D-Pad, A, B, X and Y buttons, 4 shoulder buttons (2 bumpers, 2 triggers), Start, Back, Home and Volume buttons and a multi-function NVIDIA/Power button to go with the 5", retinal display, multi-touchscreen.

Interface and Android Gaming on project SHIELD

The user interface will feel completely natural to anyone who's used an Android phone or tablet before - SHIELD is built upon pure Android and is left completely un-skinned. Because SHIELD's built on Android that means everything you have downloaded on your other Android devices is available in the cloud and thus also instantly available on the device which is running Google's latest and greatest Android Jellybean. You can rest assured that NVIDIA will keep on top of the software update process, more-so than companies like Samsung, and keep the device fully updated with the latest features Android add in the future.

Currently there are many games already released that are much higher end than what you'd expect to be playing on an Android phone. Those games have targeted the high-end devices like the powerful ASUS Transformer Prime but now those games will be focusing on dedicated Android gaming devices and consoles like the SHIELD - and, indeed, the soon to be released Ouya which kickstarted to much success last year. With Ouya wanting $950,000 and raising $8,596,474 it's clear that dedicated Android gaming is set to take the world by storm.

Worlds First Portable Device with a Bass Reflex System

The sound system is claimed to rival the quality of even a Beats Audio level system in terms of clarity and depth.

It's claimed that it has twice the signal to noise ratio of an HP laptop with Beats Audio with the device clocking in at 79 . It does this by using a specially tailored Bass Reflex System designed specifically for the SHIELD. It takes advantage or the air space in and around the device and increases. It even knows when you sit it down so that it can adjust the depth and range of the frequencies to give you the best possible sound no matter what the noise reverberates though.

Featured Games

On the official website they have listed a set of existing featured games that work with the device already. With the device sporting a Tegra 4 processor you can rest assured that all of the TegraZone games will work but the one's listed on the website are:

• ARMA Tactivs
• Blood Sword: Sword of Ruin
• Burn Zombie Burn
• Dead Trigger 2
• Real Boxing
• Rockhard
• Sonic 4 Episode 2

SHIELD and PC Gaming

One of the most understated abilities of the SHIELD is it's ability to play streamed games directly from your PC - something which has been lacking in the PC gamers world. NVIDIA are primarily a graphics card manufacturer and so you would expect that they had something like this up their sleeves for this. If you own a GeForce GTX card then you can wirelessly stream your games to the device and play your PC games from the comfort of your couch (or keep on playing your online games while you use the bathroom haha!).

There's a host of games that are already compatible available on Steam right now. Games like Assassin's Creed III, Battle Field 3, Borderlands 2, Dishonored, Hawken, Portal 2 and Skyrim.

Enjoy the freedom of being untied from the constraints of sitting at your computer while playing.

Thoughts and Opinions

I've been a writer covering the games industry for more than 4 years now, in that time I've been able to see trends and view the industry as a whole. Couple that with nigh on a quarter of a century of personal gaming experience and I can state that I'm a fairly well-educated about gaming. So my thoughts and opinions about the device and it's chances of success are as follows.

Determining Success

From the successes and failures of previous devices released of this type, of which there have been many, I can say with near certainty that the primary reason for failure is a slow adoption. If people don't own the device then developers won't invest time in making good games and that has the knock on effect of nobody wanting to pay for one - catch 22.

That has been completely voided with this device as there are already some amazing games existing that are playable on this and the Ouya has a load of big named developers already working on games that take full advantage of improved hardware to create beautiful, compelling, 3D games that I suspect will also be available to play on the SHIELD.

A big selling point for Game Developers about this device is that they already know how to make games for it, there is no learning curve and no additional resources required for them to invest. There is no reason why a developer can't create a normal Android game and have it available for SHIELD, in fact it would increase their target audience. It would be foolish for developers not to make compatible games. There will be no lack of games to play should you choose to buy a SHIELD.

I do not think that the NIVIDIA SHIELD can compete with the sales figures of the Nintendo 3DS (with the 3DS overtaking sales of the PS3 in Japan already) but it can compete with the struggling PS Vita. SHIELD may be able to wrestle some of the market share that the PS Vita is expected to build right out from under Sony's nose before the they even get a chance to build up a decent share of the market: giving the SHIELD much more pull in the portable gaming industry and establish NVIDIA as a major player for future generations. 

I feel that a device of this nature will see a shorter than average freshness - akin to how Nintendo released the DS, DSi and DSiXL over the lifespan of that console - and I think that there will be a few variants and upgraded models created over the next few years.

Availability and Pricing

The SHIELD will be available in Q2 of this year with pricing yet to be announced.